


What Shined, Shone

by Symantra



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Guilt, Loneliness, Mistletoe, Moving On, Season 1 Saya, retrospection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:26:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25460044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Symantra/pseuds/Symantra
Summary: Saya had never expected her to hold onto her crush forever. She wouldn't have been happy with that anyway; she didn't want anyone putting their lives on hold all because of her.But it didn't matter how logically she thought about it. Seeing the person she liked moving on squeezed her heart regardless, until all she wanted was burrow into bed and stay there for the rest of the night.
Relationships: Background Ichigaya Arisa/Toyama Kasumi, Background Kawabata Mayu/Mori Fumika, Umino Natsuki/Yamabuki Saaya
Comments: 10
Kudos: 17
Collections: Free Story Sundays





	What Shined, Shone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ijal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ijal/gifts).



All the sounds that were in the basement room were pencil scratches and a blissful sigh as Kasumi slumped against Arisa.

"Do you need something?" Arisa inquired. Normally, her tone would have been sharp. But Saya had noticed that her edge had dulled recently—at least when it came to Kasumi.

"Not really. But can I take a rest, just for a bit?"

Arisa eyed Kasumi for a moment before grunting, "Do what you want. Just don't forget you're here because you failed math."

"Yay!"

Normally, Arisa would have chastised her. But Saya, as well as the others, had noticed the new fondness she had for Kasumi.

There was little doubt about it: love had blossomed between her band members.

She, O-Tae, and Rimi watched Kasumi scoot back and rest her head in Arisa's lap. Arisa even smiled for a split second before returning to writing in her notebook. She felt their eyes on her and glanced up.

"Is there a problem?" She asked with a dour stare, as if she knew what they wanted to say.

"Nah," Tae answered. Kasumi's hands came up from beneath the table and started to play with Arisa's hair. "You two are just so close now."

"You think so? It's just, uh—" Arisa hesitated. "I'm just getting used to it, I guess. You didn't expect me to be getting all flustered forever, right?"

"I guess not," Rimi agreed. "It's good you're more comfortable around us now, Arisa-chan."

"Can I have a lap pillow too?" Tae earned herself a glare for her question.

"No."

"But I wanna rest too."

"Ask someone else!"

Kasumi and Arisa's vibe had become more like girlfriends' over time. Kasumi had always been one to show excessive physical affection to her friends and bandmates, but in recent weeks she had definitely been biased toward their keyboardist. There had been a few days that Arisa had been particularly on eggshells, but seemingly overnight she had mellowed out. By all appearances, she and Kasumi had sorted it out on their own.

Poppin'Party itself hadn't seen any real changes to how it operated though. They were still the same Poppin'Party; two of their members were just an item. They were still practicing at their usual times and hanging out like they always did, planning their Christmas live together, and so on.

Bandmates got together all the time if they were compatible. Besides Kasumi and Arisa, Saya knew from her talks with Tomoe that Ako and Rinko were going out on dates—Tomoe had pictures, for some reason. Tomoe herself had been going out with Himari for a few weeks now. Kanon sometimes came to the bakery to talk about Kaoru in a way that implied a huge crush. As far as Maya, Saya didn't know too much about her love life because as an idol, Maya wasn't exactly allowed to have one. But Saya saw her out and about with her fellow idols, so it could have been any of them or even all of them.

Even Mayu and Fumika, her bandmates from CHiSPA, were going out now. It had been a fair while since Saya had talked to them. Mostly she texted Natsu—she was the one who had told her in the first place.

Rimi commented on the time, and they all started cleaning up. Saya started stowing her books and supplies in her bag, hearing them chatter but too distracted to pay attention.

She didn’t think she was jealous of any of her friends for finding relationships. If anything, it made her happy that they were happy. But seeing them hooking up did make her wonder what it was like—having someone to lean on when no one else was around, someone to count on like a member of your own family but also more than that.

It seemed like a lot of responsibility to handle. To this day she couldn't imagine herself in a working relationship. She had never really had anything like one before.

That wasn't to say she had never wanted to be more than friends with someone before. She had, in fact; Natsu had even felt the same way about her.

* * *

"I know this is sudden," Saya started into the receiver. After getting back to her room, she had plopped herself down on the bed and called up Mayu. It was an impulsive call, sure, but she justified it as wanting to catch up. And she certainly wanted to, but she did have another reason for calling. She just had to know. Had to know for sure. "But did Natsu ever say anything about having a crush on me?"

"Eh?" Mayu seemed surprised, but her rapid pace slowed and she thought about it for a few moments. Saya could picture her tugging at her side tails the way she always did when she had something on her mind. "Yeah," she finally answered. "She told me about it at some point, and Fumika too. It was like, the day after her strings snapped before practice and you went with her to buy new ones."

"Oh, really. That long ago?"

"Yup. Why are you asking? Did she say something to you?"

"Oh no, she didn't. I was just wondering about it. I kind of had a feeling she felt that way about me, but I'd never really confirmed it. Since we didn't talk for a while after—you know."

"Mhm." Mayu went quiet for a bit. Saya glanced at her desk.

Mayu eventually spoke up again. "She didn't want to confess unless she knew you liked her back. Just because she wasn't sure if you swung that way. You do, right?"

"Huh? Swing, like..."

Mayu laughed. It sounded staticky over the line. "You know, gay? Into girls in at least some capacity?"

Saya’s face grew warm. "Oh. Yeah, at least some."

"Oh, okay. Yeah, Natsu wasn't totally sure if you were. That's why it took her so long to decide if she wanted to tell you or not."

Mayu's choice of words spun a few gears in Saya's head. "What did she decide to do?"

There was an ever-so-brief pause before Mayu went on. "She was going to tell you, after the performance in middle school. She—"

Saya's arm dropped to the bed. Mayu's voice crackled into thin air, and Saya quickly put her on loudspeaker so she could hear.

"—not on stage, just afterwards. You remember how we were planning to grab dinner after? Fumika and I would have left a little earlier so she could be alone with you. Of course, after you rushed to the hospital to take care of your mom, we agreed not to bring it up. We didn't want you to feel worse than you already did."

Saya understood. She thought she had learned how to deal with those feelings of hers a long time ago, thanks to her mom and Kasumi and the rest of Poppin'Party. But even now, she felt guilt-sickened.

Turning the loudspeaker off, she brought the phone back up to her ear. "I see. Thanks for telling me. It was bad timing, wasn't it?" Saya laughed, hoping Mayu would laugh with her, but the other end was quiet.

"Mm." Mayu made a noise. She still sounded worried, but she didn't say more.

"Well, thanks for telling me. I heard about you and Fumika. Congratulations."

"Oh, thanks. Will you be around next weekend? We'd love to hang out with you again."

Too tired to even glance at her calendar, Saya sighed. "Next weekend, I might be a little busy. Next time, maybe."

They finished their farewells, and Saya hung up. Now that the need to keep her arm up was gone, it went limp again.

"Natsu," she mumbled. A barrage of memories from junior high hit her. Some of them, she couldn't place when they had happened. But Natsu was in the center of each one, even if it was just some thing she had said or some gesture she had made. It was odd how something so small stuck with her so long. Things like grazing Natsu's hand while they were out shopping or noticing her perfume when she came by the bakery on weekends.

Natsu had left a lot of hints that she was interested. Saya had played around them, sometimes in coy ways, sometimes clumsily. They had preoccupied her in the hours she spent in her room after evening—hours spent hugging pillows and contemplating what it meant to have someone on her mind constantly.

Natsu had always been her friend, then she had become her bandmate, so when the possibility arose that she could become someone even more intimate, Saya had been unsure what she had wanted. What awaited past being bandmates? What kind of expectations came with it? Was she ready for that?

All those hints and signals ultimately went unacted upon. Saya had never been able to show Natsu she liked her back, not with words nor actions.

She thought about her last performance with—without—CHiSPA again. It wouldn't come without the image of Natsu standing backstage, waiting for Saya to come back. Not only had that plan gone to waste, but Saya had never returned. She had slowly phased herself out of band practices, stopped responding to texts, and finally decided to quit the band for good, all without too much explanation really.

Maybe if she had just talked to Mayu or Fumika about her feelings, they would have encouraged her to talk to Natsu. If she had, maybe Natsu wouldn't have just been a crush. Maybe then, Natsu would have stopped her from leaving CHiSPA. She had always been good at convincing Saya to change her mind. That was how she had recruited her to the band in the first place.

Suddenly, Saya’s heart felt like it was in the wrong place in her chest. She wanted to talk to Natsu again, but she couldn’t just text her at this time of night. And there had been a lot of distance between them for a while. Was it even possible to bridge anymore?

But still, the need to at least see Natsu again tugged at her like a fishing line. She reached for her phone and pulled up a social media site she knew Natsu used. Saya herself didn't use it very much, but she had made an account recently to see her friends' pictures.

After searching several variations of the name Umino Natsuki, she saw her friend's face in a tiny icon: umino_spark.

Natsu was really active here. Lots of her posts were of CHiSPA performances. Just as many were of the places she went with the rest of the band—Mayu, Fumika, and Satomi, who played the drums for them now.

Saya enlarged a few photos to look at them closer. Natsu always looked like she was having fun. Smiles at every turn, always surrounded by friends, the same _it’ll-be-okay_ energy she had always managed to radiate unless it was an hour to her next performance.

She caught herself scrolling aimlessly up and down Natsu's page, no longer enlarging photos, still not clicking the like button on any of them. What was she even doing? When had she started looking in on her best friend's life instead of just being there with her?

A little disappointed with herself, she was about to put her phone down when a photo with a face she didn't recognize jumped out at her. It belonged to some light-haired girl in a Haneoka uniform. She was holding a sweet-looking drink in both hands and wincing shyly as Natsu kissed her on the cheek while holding her phone up for a selfie. The caption read, "Met someone special today! Getting drinks @ FruiJi 💜❤️". The picture was from 6 days ago.

Saya suddenly remembered something tucked away in her drawer. She went over to her desk and dug around in the compartment for the item that had given her pause for what felt like years now.

After fumbling blindly through a bunch of her belongings, she touched something smooth and pulled it out. Her breath caught as she set it next to her phone, taking in the familiar colors of the photo film and its feel in her hand. It was from a summer festival two years ago, after Saya had joined CHiSPA. Natsu had dragged her into a photo booth to take some "wacky pictures," wearing the yukatas they had bought a year before. In the last picture, Natsu had stood up and kissed Saya on the side of her head right before the camera clicked.

It had all happened too fast for Saya to react. She had gotten all flustered afterwards, but Natsu had just winked and laughed. The rest of the festival had been a pleasant haze of lights and sounds.

Saya held the photo over the screen, so that it appeared right over the caption. Someone special. If only.

* * *

_On Christmas, missing my chance_

_To confess my honest feelings_

* * *

Christmas came around after about a month of taking care of schoolwork and practicing her drums. Poppin'Party's five members had been busy with a lot of things that December, the biggest thing being their Poppin' Xmas live. That had been a lot of fun. But now, the adrenaline had worn off, leaving Saya to gaze out the livehouse window with a party cup in hand and enough on her mind to last her into the new year.

Natsu stood next to her, doing the same.

Mayu, Fumika, and Satomi were somewhere else, having been cajoled by Kasumi to go around meeting the rest of the band girls. That left Natsu with Saya.

It had been a while since she had talked to Natsu. They texted a bit, at least once a week, but Saya struggled to have what felt like a natural conversation with her. She couldn't talk to Natsu about the things they talked about in junior high, but she didn't know what to talk to her about now.

"It's a bit loud in here," Natsu mentioned after their small talk had started to feel stagnant. She looked right at Saya. "Wanna go outside for a little?"

"Sure!" Natsu led the way. Saya grabbed her scarf from a table by the door and followed her out to the terrace.

The sun cast the front of CiRCLE with an orange glow. Street lamps lined the area, though they hadn't turned on yet. The two of them walked over to a bench by the street and sat down. Saya was glad for her heavy jacket, and her scarf; she hid her mouth in it and exhaled. Warmth pooled around her cold lips.

After a short silence, Natsu leaned back and dug around in her pocket. "I wanted to give you this." She pulled out a lightly colored box with small dents in the corners.

"You’re kidding. If I had known, I would have got you something.”

Natsu chuckled. "Don't think of it that way. I just wanted you to have this. You don't owe me anything, got that? No opening until you agree," she cut in as Saya's fingers brushed the top of the box. Her teasing grin was the same as it had been back then.

"Okay, okay, I won't. I promise."

"Alright, good. You can open it now."

Saya lifted the lid, which came off easily as if it had many times before. Inside the box rested a single earring. A yellow jewel, the size of her nail on her pinky finger.

"I wanted to give you this a while ago," Natsu explained as Saya carefully took it out of the box. It shined in her palm as she held it up. "I never really got the right chance, though."

Saya immediately knew Natsu had meant to give this to her when she had still been a part of the band, as part of her confession after the performance.

"And I know you don't really wear earrings. But I bought it thinking it'd look good on you. And yeah. I still think it would. It's citrine, by the way."

"Natsu," Saya trailed away. For its size, the earring seemed heavy in her hand. "Wasn't this expensive?"

"It wasn't that much. You're worth the price, anyway."

Natsu's comment should have made her blush or at least smile. Saya looked at the earring again. With the last bit of sun in the day, it gleamed. It must have sat in this box for months, never getting a chance to shine like this until now—a gift ungiven, bought for a chance that no longer existed.

Still, Natsu had kept it for her, for this long. That meant something, right?

Some movement inside the building made Saya look over. Kasumi had paused by the window to watch them. She was giggling about something until Arisa appeared and dragged her away, but not without a quick glance in Saya and Natsu's direction.

For some reason, Saya felt they hadn't been looking straight at her. She turned around to look at the spot above her head. As it turned out, someone had tied mistletoe to this particular street post. She wondered who it might have been.

She tried to play it off, but Natsu had noticed her looking around and followed her line of sight. Her gaze landed on the mistletoe.

They both looked away, avoiding each other. Saya's lips began to feel cold, despite her scarf, despite her breath.

Neither of them said a thing for a little bit, until Saya managed to force out a weak “Um...”

Natsu finally spoke.

"Sorry, Saya." Her voice sounded apologetic, almost sorrowful. "I can't."

A lump rising in the back of her throat, Saya nodded.

"Yeah. I understand."

She laid the earring back in the box and placed the lid over it.

"Should we go back inside before it gets cold?" Natsu asked.

Saya nodded. She stood up, pretended to stretch. Tilting her head back to examine the sky helped her keep back her tears. They would come out later, but for now she would keep them down.

The last thing she wanted was for Natsu to see her face, and Natsu didn't seem to want to show hers either. But they were both heading to the same place, so it was impossible to avoid looking up and catching each others' eyes.

They both put on a smile.

"Thanks for the earring. It's really nice."

"Of course. Anytime, Saya."

They went back inside. It had gotten cold; Saya kept her scarf wrapped around her neck. The party went on until an hour when the street lamps had already blinked to life, twinkling against the night.

* * *

_I left them at your bedside_

_In a present without a ribbon_

* * *


End file.
